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Sunday, January 8, 2017

The puzzle of the early Corded Ware grave

In a recent paper and talk, archaeologist Kristian Kristiansen mentions a very early Corded Ware (CW) burial in Tiefbrunn, Germany; one of a few that contain a hammer-headed bone pin, like those found in Yamnaya and Catacomb graves on the steppe, particularly in the North Caucasus region.

Sr isotope ratios suggest that the older man was non-local, while the young man and the child may be locals. The skulls of all three individuals exhibited signs of severe trauma and they had probably suffered violent deaths.
...
The grave goods consisted of only a flint blade and a hammer-headed bone pin, laid down beside the older male. Such pins are rare in the CW of Central Europe, but common in the Pontic Steppe region where they occur in a variety of forms until they disappear around 2600 BC [38].

All three individuals from this grave had their genomes sequenced as part of The Rise project and were labeled RISE434, RISE435 and RISE436. This is how they cluster in my Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of ancient West Eurasia.

As far as I can tell, based on the Sr isotope ratios from Sjögren K-G, Price TD, Kristiansen K 2016, RISE436 is the older man with the pin and RISE434 the young man (see here).
But if so, what is the likely non-local RISE436 doing as the most western of the Corded Ware samples sequenced to date? And why are the potentially local RISE434 and RISE435 so much more Yamnaya-like than him?
My interpretation of these results is that RISE436 was the descendant of a proto-Corded Ware male migrant from the steppe, and that his mother may have been of pre-Corded Ware farmer stock from Central or East-Central Europe. Note that this individual belongs to the Eastern European Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a, Western European (?) mitochondrial haplogroup U5b1c2, and on the plot above clusters almost exactly half-way between Yamnaya and early European farmers (Europe_EN and Europe_MN).
On the other hand, the young man and infant may derive from a more fully developed Corded Ware community in Central Europe, largely made up of second and third generation migrants from the steppe.
Any other ideas?
Citations...
Sjögren K-G, Price TD, Kristiansen K (2016) Diet and Mobility in the Corded Ware of Central Europe. PLoS ONE 11(5): e0155083. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0155083
Allentoft et al., Population genomics of Bronze Age Eurasia, Nature 522, 167–172 (11 June 2015) doi:10.1038/nature14507

A real person with one Steppe parent and one MN parent! That's amazing. Where does he cluster? Hungary, YugoSlavia? He's perfect for demonstrating that European diversity is largely determined by proportions of MN and Steppe ancestry.

Examples of grave sites where admixture between divergent populations happened are the best prove you can get of where haplogroups come from. The pure bred Corded Ware individuals in his grave had U4 and J1b1a1, both already suspected to be Steppe mtDNA haplogroups.

My guess is that the older fellow was born elsewhere but was of local stock. Mother travelled out to the steppe, had a son and later the family (or the widow and kid/s) returned home to settle. As you say he is in the right spot on your plot to be half Yamnaya-esque and half Mediterranean/EEF/southern european. These folk were seen as far north as Scandinavia so a German enclave is not unreasonable.

The two other males could be the local progeny of more genetically northern girls and visiting tall Steppe men with fast carts! :)

I think it'd hard to say what the variation represents. Not doubt there were different streams of invasions, some via southern Poland, others due north to the East Baltic. And the pattern of R1a sub-lineages is somewhat suggestive. But overall I don't think the overall genomic variation differentiates into a geographically or temporally meaningful way, at present.

"The grave goods consisted of only a flint blade and a hammer-headed bone pin, laid down beside the older male. Such pins are rare in the CW of Central Europe, but common in the Pontic Steppe region where they occur in a variety of forms until they disappear around 2600 BC"

This speaks to the not-evidence-but-interesting "what if" stuff i like

Thor (red-haired in the mythology) is associated with a hammer and lightning

@Annie Mouse,"As you say he is in the right spot on your plot to be half Yamnaya-esque and half Mediterranean/EEF/southern european. These folk were seen as far north as Scandinavia so a German enclave is not unreasonable."

Southern Europeans aren't identical to EEF. Most are like 60% Anatolia Neolithicish at the most. They're mixed like everyone else, except Sardinians aren't that mixed.

"The two other males could be the local progeny of more genetically northern girls and visiting tall Steppe men with fast carts! :)"

Northern girls in 3000 BC were like Gok2, EEF plus some WHG. Don't base things on modern populations.

Sam In the north I'd contend that there were groups like SHG, WHG and EHG longer (later) than we might expect. It is quite plausible that CWC not only mixed with Central European MNE, but also EHG/SHG and WHG.

Here's a reason ancient DNA from children of biracial couples is useful....

Where an ancient child of biracial parents clusters in a PCA is where a biracial population who's a 50/50 mix should cluster in a PCA. Children of a biracial couple are the best way to determine if a modern population is also a 50/50 mix.

Modern people in Corded Ware territory and a Bronze age German(with R1a) cluster further east and north than RISE436. Therefore they probably have more Steppe and WHG ancestry. They're probably not a simple 50/50 mix of Corded Ware and Middle Neolithic Europeans.

@Rob,"Some SHG is in CWC - as Angantyr stated there were SHG Foragers in Scandinavia when CWC / BAx arrived IMO it increases significantly in Unetice"

If that was the case we don't see easily detectable traces of SHG in modern Scandinavians. And we know Scandinavians have Corded Ware ancestry because a Corded Ware Swede had R1a-Z284 which is at 20-30% in modern Scandinavians.

Dave Not being necessary in fits doesn't mean it didn't occur Anyhow, in large parts of Eastern Sweden PWC had taken back over TRB areas before CWC arrived. And there's I1. So it's black and white in that regard

It could be. But that would mean western Yamnaya / Proto CWC had I1 because there are no other archaeological movements to explain the appaearance of a carpathian group in Sweden. But then why the the lack of I1 in other western steppe derived areas of Europe. ?Hence it's likely from local Scandinavian Foragers (one of them was indeed pre-I1).

I guess the other possibility is that it arrived form CT or something like that, that just happened to be absorbed in a wave that went to Scandinavia only

But even if modern Scandinavian I1 is from PWC, that says nothing about PWC genome-wide admixture in Bronze Age and modern Scandinavians, because most modern I1 derives from a severe recent bottleneck.

I1 was found in Early Neolihic Hungary. Right now the authors of the study who found him are getting his genome. I1, according to geneticker's work, has also been found in Mesolithic Sweden.

@Rob,"But that would mean western Yamnaya / Proto CWC had I1 because there are no other archaeological movements to explain the appaearance of a carpathian group in Sweden. But then why the the lack of I1 in other western steppe derived areas of Europe. ?"

Just about everyone in Europe, including the Carpathian, has at least 3% I1. I1 need not have existed in proto CWC if Scandinavia's I1 is from MN farmers. It could have arrived in Scandinavia with Corded Ware who had lots of MN admixture or other heavily Steppe people who had lots of MN admixture.

But the thing is all current I1 throughout Europe - especially southeastern Europe (incl Hungary, Serbia, etc) is nested within (derived from) north Europe. In other words, it's very likely to be from Gothic remnants, etc, not that LBK farmer in Nagy's study. Northern Europe is definitely the place of origin for modern I1, whether by Bronze Age founder effect from somewhere else, or local Mesolithic survival then expansion in Bronze Age.

I wonder if the bone pin was handed down down to him from his ancestors. I've read research on the hammer headed & catapult bone pin artifacts from the Pontic-Caspian Steppes. Sometimes the bone pins have been repaired and are much older than the buried individual. These pins must have been treasured family heirlooms. ( I had Yamnaya, Catacombnaya replica bone pin made!) I believe bone pins were found in Hungary too. jv

"Why did SHG not contribute gene flow to most modern northern Europeans while there is plenty of EHG/WHG?"

If WHG and SHG were adapted to specific regions and evenly balanced in terms of pop. density and technology then there might not have been any reason for genes from any mixed marriages to spread and no way for either of them to physically displace each other.

Whereas with EEF/EHG it seems there was a physical displacement of WHG territory (with substantial survival/revival).

Doesn't seem like a puzzle to me if CWC folks are descended from the Yamnaya Culture.Here is a photo of the bone pin found in Germany:http://www.museum-digital.de/san/index.php?t=objekt&oges=11152. Also, an illustration of the bone pin found in Germany is in the book ANCIENT EUROPE A SURVEY (Piggott) page 84. Page 85 has a map of the distribution of Hammer-headed bone pins & derivative forms found in Europe.